Photokina 2012: Sony has announced three extra E-mount lenses for its NEX cameras, a 10-18mm wide zoom, a 16-50mm retractable power zoom and a 35mm F1.8 prime lens. The 10-18mm F4 is a mid-level wide-angle zoom covering a 15-27mm equivalent range. The 16-50mm F3.5-5.6 power zoom offers a compact standard zoom covering the 24-75mm equivalent range. Finally the 35mm F1.8 is a bright 53mm equivalent normal prime lens. All three feature Sony's Optical Steady Shot image stabilization. The 10-18mm will cost around $850, the 16-50mm power zoom will cost around $350 and the 35mm F1.8 will be priced around $450.

Press release:

New Interchangeable Lenses for α E-mount Cameras

Sony E 35mm F1.8 OSS

Sony has also introduced three new lenses for its E-mount line of interchangeable lens cameras, adding to the system’s flexibility.

The new SELP1650 lens is an extremely light, compact 16-50mm F3.5-5.6 powered zoom model that measures only 29.9 mm thick (when fully retracted) and contains built-in Optical SteadyShot™ image stabilization for clearer handheld images. Additionally, it features a dual-function ring that controls both power zoom and manual focus, depending on the camera’s focus mode. With the camera set to AF the control ring adjusts smooth, high-speed zoom with small hand movements. With the camera in MF mode, the ring controls manual focus. A smooth power zoom dial makes the lens particularly useful for shooting video.

Sony E PZ 16-50mm F3.5-5.6 OSS power zoom

The new SEL35F18 lens is a wide aperture 35mm focal length model with a bright maximum aperture of f/1.8 and built-in Optical SteadyShot image stabilization. It offers excellent optical sharpness, clarity, and background defocus in both still images and HD video, and is exceptionally light and easy to carry.

Sony E 10-18mm F4 OSS

The new SEL1018 lens is a super-wide angle zoom with a maximum aperture of f/4.0 across its range of 10-18mm and built-in Optical SteadyShot image stabilization. Adopting the super ED (Extra-low Dispersion) glass which reduces color aberration, the lens is capable of producing dramatic perspective effects and is ideal for shooting landscapes and interiors.

Pricing and Availability

The SELP1650 power zoom lens will be sold separately in January for about $350, and the SEL35F18 prime and SEL1018 wide angle lenses will be available this November for about $450 and $850, respectively.

Comments

I am encountering some weird and unexpected vignettingin my SEL10-18 that no software program can fix. It is like taking a picture from a tube. I am so distress! I wish some colleagues from this blog could help me, perhaps I am doing something wrong. After a series of 10 landscape pictures yesterday, I noticed that it had began giving me some vignetting. I opened it from f/16 to f/11 but the problem continued until the end...I do not know if it is the camera or it is the lens.

I have a C3 with the original 18-55 kit lens. Worked great on my honeymoon. All I really need is a lens with the same zoom range but 2.8 max aperture. No need to mess with primes (most of them are pretty slow anyway)

I use the Sony 16mm & the 50mm & a 30 yr. old a Tamron Zoom BBAR 70~210mm in m42 w/ adapter. I just came back from Italy, Croatia, Montenegro, Turkey and shot 637 exposures. The 16mm & 50mm were used with a polirizer filter and the zoom a sunshade. The results were staggering! Any fool that beleaves Nikon or Canon monster Digital cameras and Lenses are better should see what a Sony Nex 7 @ 24 Meg can really do! Even the photos shot at 263mm manual focus, exposure, are very sharp, contrasty and saleable. I would like too see Sony make a 300mm@F:4.5 in OSS as I need a longer telephoto in AF & OSS. I am shocked that photo writers untruthfully state the 16mm is a bad lens. Too this travel photographer that's a lie! Shooting with 16mm & a Polirizer allows be to crop the 24 Meg file for super composition maintaining sharpness also.

The 10-18mm and 16-50mm are good news for NEX afficionados who like wide angles for landscapes and shoot JPEG.

But I also imagine they and the 35mm F1.8 will retain the absurd curvilinear distortion that I believe makes most Sony E lenses and many others for APSC and Four-Thirds a joke for serious work where you want to shoot RAW. I also insist upon a RAW developer of my own choosing, not SONY's because I am out for the best tone-mapping on the planet, IMO currently Oloneo PhotoEngine.

For that and want of a decent OVF since the NEX-7 EVF is also a bad joke, I will stick to my DSLR in spite of the size and weight which I admit is a serious nuisance.

By the time EVFs get up to 14 mb instead of the present 1.4 mb, maybe they will be able to distill electronically every last ounce of refinement and equal an optical viewfinder system. By if/when that ever happens, I will no longer be around, so who cares? Just get a caddy and keep to shooting through mirrors.

The zoom lever is on the lens so you can use it on every single NEX camera ever made. The only NEX-series cameras that does have a zoom lever on body are NEX-VG30, NEX-VG900 and NEX-FS700 but all those are for video mainly.

16-50 is OK. I guess depends on quality, E18-55 is incredibly bad for a modern lens.10-18 and 35 are somewhat overpriced compared to SLR competition (Sigma 10-20 lenses are $480, Tamron 10-24 are $450 etc).

Do you realize that if they reduce the gap between the lens and sensor you end with a more difficult design? You should compare mirrorless lenses with other mirrorless designs and the only comparable design is the Panasonic 7-14mm f/4 zoom, that is priced higher (even with the time it has on the market) and doesn't have OSS (priced around $50 higher last time I checked it on BH).

Overpriced? Not. Constant f/4 aperture, OSS, smaller design overall (since it doens't sit far from the sensor) and you end with a higher priced lens. Pricey? Yes, but not overpriced given these reasons.

The E18-55 is pretty good. I have used the nex5 with E18-55 and many Nikon, Canon lens. I do not see any difference between them. Only Nikon prime like 50mm f1.8 really impressed me but it is a prime lens.

Expect a 85 or 90mm f/1.8 next year (There is a Mid-telephoto lens on roadmap and since Sony advertise the 50mm f/1.8 as telephoto, it will be between those ranges). But so far, no additional macro lens for NEX-series.

Yes, the Nex-6 (for me) is perfect if they can pull off decent performance with their new primes and zooms. Let's wait and see. Could be an actual contender against m43 for a light weight kit to complement my D800 plus heavy (but stellar) FX lenses.

Yeah, agree. I tried the 16-50 power zoom in store today. While I personally like the 18-55 more because of its build quality, 16-50 has a better range (for me). Coming from Canon DSLR, the test shots taken with both of these seem so much better than the 18-55 on canon.

Everyone will claim that Sony will dominate the market after today. Then others will claim that Nikon will dominate after tomorrow. Then others will claim Panasonic and Olympus(m4/3s) will dominate after Monday.

The truth is that this next week will absolutely change the camera market forever. However, all 4 of those companies will probably keep similar market shares to what they had before. The difference will be that the consumers now have 4 very complete solutions from these different companies. Each option has it strengths and weaknesses but all of them can produce wonderful pictures and videos in capable hands.

I don't think Canon will catch up or try too at this point. And I do think Samsung may consider throwing in the towel if they can't come up with something really fast. A half effort won't win this battle, Sony seems to have got that memo now.

I don't see any change here. m4/3 stays by far more attractive as it has considerable more lens choices and more diversity in body concepts. The new NEX cameras still stick to the awkward, menu-driven usability concept: a no go for me. The stacking of the mode dial and the control wheel seems to be an error prone solution.

Phew, took them long enough! Sony's finally coming into their own, but I think m4/3 will keep a good share of the market as the lenses are still a fair bit smaller and very good quality, we'll have to wait to see whether these new Sony lenses perform as well.

"more diversity in body concepts" - cause every reasonable person runs with 5 different bodies just to show that there's diversity.

lol. Yea, I get it: you bought m4/3 and think it's awesome. But for other people it's important to have 1 great body and few lenses they are interested in. It doesn't matter if there are 5 lenses or 5000 lenses available if their needs are met. Right now NEX meets the needs of most people easily, so I don't see much reason to whine.

Why would Samsung give up? Samsung still has better fixed focus lenses, with the exception of the Nex system Zeiss 24MM. You see Sony Nex glass doesn't have the greatest reputation. While much Samsung NX and Fuji X glass does.

Samsung has AMOLED tech, Sony doesn't

Samsung has very good sensors--like Sony.

The NX20 is excellent for video and image quality. Someday Samsung will fix the buffer.

"It features a dual-function ring that controls both power zoom and manual focus, depending on the camera’s focus mode. With the camera set to AF the control ring adjusts smooth, high-speed zoom with small hand movements. With the camera in MF mode, the ring controls manual focus."

Now, that's what I call a smart zoom lens. When you are focusing manually, you cannot zoom at all. It's either zooming. Of focusing, your choice. Just not both at the same time, you see.

Pretty good for your non-zooming video shots.

I dearly love Sony, and I very much like their NEX cameras. But they also have the Alpha DSLTs, and those and the Sony/Zeiss and 3rd party lenses for them are so much better overall, it's not even funny. :-)

Bad lens design. You need one hand to focus on the lens, one hand to operate zoom switch/PZ slider on the camera, plus you need to somehow hold the camera and also operate the START/STOP button in video mode.

Of course, what can one expect for a lens list priced at only US$350, eh?

"in AF mode you can zoom either manually or with PZ slider."

This does not look like a proper MANUAL ZOOM to me. More like a servo zoom.

Francis Carver said:"This does not look like a proper MANUAL ZOOM to me. More like a servo zoom."

It's a power zoom after all! Geez.. And I'm sure, you can both focus and zoom with the same hand. The lever sits on the left side of the camera when the lens is mounted, so with your thumb you zoom, and with your index you focus. Or is it too hard for you?

That's true. 16mm is a piece of junk, then we have 24/1.8 and 35/1.8. Those two look good, but the price is kinda high. I'd go with Samsung or Fuji instead. Considering that the price of Fuji is also high, then we have only Samsung left as an alternative with 3 good pancakes.

The Fuji 18/2 isn't exactly stellar at the edges, either. Fuji doesn't even have their 23mm lens yet, and the Sony 35/1.8 and 50/1.8 have OSS. Plus, the new Sony 10-18 f4 should be very good. How is Fuji ahead of Sony here?

Sony has 1 decent lense - 24. We don't know anything about the quality of 35., but let's assume it's good. So two lenses, and both are expensive. I'm sorry, but Samsung has a better selection. Fuji is also good, but expensive. The size of Sony lenses is gigantic too compared to others.

sweeeeet...! High price for the SEL1018...but searching for a small Ultrawide zoom with constant aperture and Optical Stabilization...the other comparable lens is the Lumix G 7-14 and the price is quite similar, so I don't know what people are whining right now. Remember, the SE1018 includes OSS, others not.

With the SEL50F18 being priced at 300 USD I would have prefered the SEL35F18 being priced at 375 USD...but sadly, Sony knows people wanted this lens so much that first, they're going to get some profit for a looong time. What I really want to know is...with the SEL16F28 discontinued, what wide prime lens do we have then? Only Sigma 19mm f/2.8 but that's bigger than Sony 16mm f/2.8.

That is because all e-mount Sony lenses have focus-by-wire: no mechanical linking between the ring and the actual focusing mechanism. That said, I also would have liked a mechanically coupled focusing ring with them.

I was just whining about this on a different thread. It seems Sony has heard my prayers and responded. I'd prefer an f/1.4, but the 35mm f/1.8 means that my Sigma 30mm f/2.8 goes up for sale, along with that odious Sony 30mm f/3.5 macro. And at $450, if the 35mm f/1.8 is a decent piece of glass, it's likely to cut deep into the sale of the Zeiss 24mm f/1.8 (which is perpetually out-of-stock anyway). Okay, maybe not "deep," but unless you absolutely need a 24 on this kind of camera, why pay more than twice the price. Good work, Sony. Now, let's see if you can actually deliver it in November, as stated, and not make us wait until 2014, which wouldn't be a huge surprise if past history is any indicator.

It won't do much to the Zeiss sales I imagine, it is totally different focal length. Wide vs standard, it might get a few that just want an f/1.8 lens, but they have the even cheaper 50 mm f/1.8 for that. I think I would have preferred $300 for this lens, but if it performs well it will be nice.

Well normally I would agree, but these have image stabilisation in lens, so IMO the prices are reasonable. That 35 f/1.8 for $450 would be very nice. Also UWA lens are very hard to design if you want good performance and are usually expensive anyway, so again with OSS included (not sure why though) for $850 it's not ridiculous.

I assume street prices will be cheaper anyway. I can get Olympus lenses far cheaper than MSRP, so hopefully the same here.

I've been waiting for the 10mm zoom!finally! F4 but it has inbody image stabi for the nex7? 850 RRP, I hope the street price is lower, just like my fav 10mm EFS, it was about the same price when it came out. but now I can get a mint second hand for about 520 U.S

the 10-18mm f/4 has In Lens Image Stabilization. The Panasonic 7-14mm f/4 doesn't have Image Stabilization and it's priced even higher. And haven't seen other ultra wide with constant aperture and OSS this small... so the price seems about right.

850$ for a 10-18 and only F4. they are kiddding. So, again the lens one waits for will be out of price for the normal user. The 16-50 seems ok to me, at least. So, I will stick to the Tokina 12-24 F4 with adapter. She performs great on NEX-7, despite being much bigger and half the price of this Sony lens. Seems to me that the NEX will get pocketable with the 16-50, was great time that Sony moved there backs and made something.

Nikon's 10-24 and Canon 10-22 cost about the same. Panasonic's 7-14 costs even more. I'll wait to criticize the price of this lens until I see how it performs optically. As it is, this lens is high on my WANT list.

f/1.4 ?????The prices are too high, that is Sony's typical price policy. The 10-18 at 500-600 and the prime at 450 would be ok. I match your price ideas here. Let's wait first what the pictures tell us. But, at 850 the 10-18 is out of range for me. I can afford it but do not see any utility to buy it. I get a high valued Voigtlaender 15 mm for 400$ in 39 Leica mount and same for 500$ in M-mount, new in the box.